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ADDRESS 



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MISS MILDRED LEWIS RUTHERFORD 

OF ATHENS GEORGIA 



HISTORIAN GENERAL 

UNITED DAUGHTERS OF CONFEDERACY 

1911-1916 



Thirteen Periods of 
United States History 




NEW ORLEANS, LA. 
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912 



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ress 



Delivered By 

Miss Mildred Lewis Rutherford 

a 

Historian General 

United Daughters of the 

Confederacy 



Thirteen Periods of United 
States History 



New Orleans, La. 
Thursday, November 2 1 st, 1912 



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COPYRIGHTED 1916 

By 
J. STANDISH CLARK 



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Thirteen Periods of United States History 

THE SOUTH'S PART IN MAKING HISTORY. 

AST year at Washington, you remember, your His- 
torian-General sounded a very sad note; this year 
she is able to sound a far more cheerful one. 
Twenty-one of twenty-two State Divisions have 
reported systematic work along historical lines; six, of the 
eleven States having no Divisions, have also reported progress; 
and some individual chapters have sent most valuable contri- 
butions recording Southern events. 

This advance has been a great encouragement, and it has 
made me feel that if such advance continues in the same pro- 
portion each year, it will not be long before the South shall 
be placed where she rightly belongs in the annals of history. 

I bring you this evening sixteen volumes, averaging 400 
pages each, which I have prepared for you in scrap book form. 
These bound volumes are not for publication, but are com- 
piled for the convenience of the future historian. I desire, 
after indexing them, to be permitted to place them in our Con- 
federate Museum at Richmond, Va., so that there shall be no 
excuse hereafter that the truth concerning the South is not 
available. 

As State Historian of Georgia, I have twenty-six similar 
volumes pertaining to Georgia history; as the historian of 
my own chapter I have eleven volumes concerning Athens 
history. 

Do you not see the possibilities in our work? Each State 
Historian has the opportunity of compiling her own State 
history; each Chapter Historian, her own local history, put- 
ting it into scrap-book form, binding it, indexing it, and hav- 
ing it ready when it is needed. 

I had hoped to bring you this evening twenty volumes 
instead of sixteen, but four of these volumes could not be 
completed because you failed to do your duty. 

Our President-General urged you to send the history of 
your State Division — only eleven States responded, so that 
volume is incomplete. I urged you in my Open Letter to send 
information regarding the disputed points, connected with our 
Confederate history, also your state's part in the making of our 

3 



history, and the names of our great men of the South in 
Science, Art and Invention from your State. Very few 
responded to these requests, so the three other volumes conse- 
quently remain unfinished. 

Now, Daughters of the Confederacy, while it is true that 
we are making an advance in collecting and preserving this 
history, are we really doing all that we can do? Have we in 
the past done all that could have been done? I answer without 
hesitation, I do not think so. 

We are far too prone to believe that the history of the 
South is included in the four years of the War Between the 
States and the seven years of reconstruction which followed. 
While this is undoubtedly the pivot upon which our Southern 
history does turn, we should not neglect to know and to teach 
the events which led to this period, and the results which have 
followed. 

To my mind there are thirteen well-defined eras or periods 
of United States history. In eight of these eras the South has 
been pre-eminent; in four the North has been pre-eminent; 
in one we have shared the honors. 

I wish very much that time would permit me this evening 
to take period by period and show you just what rightfully 
belongs to the South. As it is, I shall only have time to give 
you a glimpse of the many good things that we may claim. 

May I suggest that the Chapters take these Thirteen 
Periods for their Historical Programs next year, using these 
instead of a Year Book? If this is done the next Convention 
will report marvelous progress in a knowledge of Southern 
history. The amount expended in Year Books can then be 
given to our Arlington and Shiloh monuments, and greatly 
facilitate those objects. 

While the Mason and Dixon line was drawn to settle a 
dispute between the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland 
regarding their boundary, I shall use that line to separate the 
colonies and states of the North from those of the South. 

One hundred years or more had passed since Columbus 
discovered America, when Queen Elizabeth, realizing that 
Spain was not only gaining great wealth by her possessions 
in America, but that she was also planting a religion that 
was not Protestant, granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, one of her 
favorites, permission to organize a company for the purpose 
of establishing settlements in the New World in England's 
name. This settlement was called for the Virgin Queen, Vir- 



ginia. It extended from "the northern boundary of Florida on 
the South to the St. Lawrence River including the Great Lakes 
on the North, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the East to the 
Great Sea on the West." So you see that every colony, at 
the time of the War of Independence, had practically been 
settled on Virginia's soil. Eight of these colonies were in the 
North and only five were in the South. Those in the North 
included in area 164,000 square miles, while those in the South 
included 824,000, five times the extent of territory. 

Let us now begin with the Early Colonial Period, the first 
of our history. 

Not only was the Jamestown colony in Virginia the first 
permanent English colony in America, but it was the first 
to have an Assembly, a written Constitution, a trial by jury, 
an endowed college, a school house, a school for Indians, a 
missionary to the Indians. First to have a preacher, to build 
a church, to have a marriage ceremony, a baptism, a Thanks- 
giving Day (1609), a hospital, a physician, an orphan asylum. 
First to Christianize the negro, to stand for liberty of con- 
science, to stand for religious freedom, to demand the right 
to will one's property, to have a library, to have a free library, 
to have a circulating library, to have free schools, to have a 
colonial currency, to write a book, to have a Sunday School, 
to have a hymn book, to have a court house, to have a post 
office. First to have a tavern, to have an iron furnace, to plant 
cotton, rice, indigo, potatoes, and grapes, to discover the love- 
apple now our tomato, to build a ship, to build a Masonic 
Temple, to make bricks, to leave a legacy to the poor — yes, 
first in many things I have not time to mention. 

"Whitaker's Good Newes" was the first book ever written 
on America's soil, although it had to be printed in England. 
Edwin Sandys wrote the first book ever printed in America, 
although it was printed on a New England press. Dryden 
said Sandys was "the best versifier of his age," and Alexander 
Pope gave him high praise. William Strachey in 1609 wrote 
his "Shipwreck at Sea," which suggested to William Shake- 
speare his great play, "The Tempest." The first Literary 
Society in the United States was at Charleston in 1748 and it 
is in existence today. 

John Smith, of the Jamestown colony, not only discovered 
New England and Plymouth but named them, and advised the 
Pilgrim Fathers to come to them! There were eleven planta- 
tions or burgesses in Virginia with negroes on them, and a 

5 



population of more than 4,000 people before the Mayflower 
ever sailed for America. So we must not believe that every- 
thing good and great in those early days originated in the 
Plymouth Rock colony, as history represents it. We have in 
the South the oldest city in the United States, St. Augustine, 
and Jamestown you know was "The Cradle of the Republic." 

Had it not been for the victory at Bloody Marsh in 1742 
there would have been no colonies to declare their indepen- 
dence. The Spaniards in Florida had fully determined to take 
possession of all the land claimed by the English from the 
boundary of Florida to the St. Lawrence River, and this they 
could easily have done. Oglethorpe with his brave 682 Geor- 
gians and two poorly equipped ships met 5,000 Spaniards, 
well-disciplined and well-equipped, with 56 ships well- 
provisioned at Bloody Marsh on St. Simon's Island, not far 
from Frederica, and trailed, for the first time on America's 
soil, the Spanish flag in the dust. 

George Whitfield said "That victory was like one of the 
Bible victories where God fought the battle for His people." 
But for this battle there would probably have been no Bunker 
Hill, no Saratoga, no Cowpens, no King's Mountain, no York- 
town, and Spain would be ruling where America rules today. 
New York acknowledged this, Pennsylvania acknowledged 
it, so did New Jersey and the other colonies and wrote to Ogle- 
thorpe testifying their indebtedness to Georgia for the victory 
he had achieved. 

Surely the South may claim to be pre-eminent in this the 
first period of our history! 

Turning now to the second or Later Colonial Period. It 
had ever been a principle with the British government that 
those governing only could levy taxes. It was with this under- 
standing that all of the colonies were settled. When England, 
contrary to this agreement, began her acts of oppression, such 
as the Importation Acts, Navigation Acts, acts forbidding the 
colonies to trade with the West Indies or even among them- 
selves, the colonies began to show a spirit of resistance. But 
this resistance began with no thought of separation from the 
mother country, and this thought came only when they were 
denied a voice in the levying of their taxes. As far back as 
1659 Gov. Fendall of Maryland, outraged by the arbitrary 
acts of the Lords Proprietors at a meeting held at Robert Slye's 
house declared Maryland a Republic. Culpepper, of North 
Carolina, appointed Courts of Justice and imprisoned the 



president of this colony 100 years before the Declaration. In 
1719 South Carolina dismissed her Lords Proprietors and 
chose her own governor. You well remember Nathaniel 
Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, and North Carolina's trouble 
with her governor, and Georgia's arrest of hers. 

But the "Child of Independence" was really born in 1735 
when Charles Pinckney in the South Carolina Assembly said, 
"South Carolina has as much right to make her laws and levy 
her taxes as England." You were not taught that in history, 
were you? Your children are not being taught it now. I was 
taught, and so were you, that "The Child of Independence" 
was born twenty-six years later when James Otis, of Massa- 
chusetts protested against the "Writs of Assistance." 

In 1764 when Lord Grenville, the Prime Minister of Eng- 
land, announced in Parliament that the American colonies 
must be taxed by an act of Parliament, not by colonial act, 
in order to defray the war debt incurred by the French and 
Indian wars, there arose a war cry — "Taxation without repre- 
sentation." 

The Stamp Act Convention in New York followed. South 
Carolina sent Christopher Gadsden to represent her. When 
he said, "British lawmakers have no right to make laws for 
the colonies," Massachusetts publicly rebuked him for his 
"intemperate speech." Soon after this those brave North 
Carolinians seized a vessel and confiscated all the stamps she 
had on board. 

The celebrated Tea Party then took place. By the way, 
history as it is now written, makes so much of this tea-party 
at Boston with its disguised men to throw tea overboard, and 
says little of that one at Charleston when the tea was thrown 
overboard in broad daylight by men with no disguises, and the 
one at Annapolis, Md., about the same time and the tea openly 
thrown into the sea. 

Jonathan Bryan, of Savannah, called a meeting in 1769 
to protest against the Stamp Act, and Gov. Wright dismissed 
him from the Council. The Boston Port Bill followed. Who 
issued the Non-Importation Act, refusing to trade with Eng- 
land or the West Indies until Boston was relieved? John 
Hanson of Maryland. Who came in loving sympathy to aid 
Massachusetts? The Southern colonies. Washington said, "I 
will equip, if need be, a regiment of soldiers at my own ex- 
pense to relieve poor Massachusetts." Georgia said, "I will 
send her 600 barrels of rice and the equivalent of $720 to aid 

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her." North Carolina said, "I will send an equivalent of 
$10,000 to her," and South Carolina said, "I will also send 
her rice and money." George Mason wrote to his daughters 
in Virginia that when the services were held to pray for the 
relief of Massachusetts, they must go to those services in deep 
mourning. Patrick Henry said, "An insult to Massachusetts is 
an insult to Virginia !" 

The ball of the Revolution really started, for this was 
the first public act of defiance, when Patrick Henry made 
that speech in the House of Burgesses in Virginia in 1774, when 
he said, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. had his Cromwell, 

and George III. " The cry arose, "Treason! treason!" 

Pausing for a moment he added, "may well profit by their 
example. If this be treason, make the most of it." That ball 
continued to roll and gained an impetus until his memorable 
speech in the St. John Church at Richmond, beginning with, 
"We must fight if we would be free," and ending with those 
memorable words "but as for me, give me liberty or give me 
death." Those words "liberty or death" became the battle cry 
of the Revolution. 

Following closely came the Mecklenburg Declaration in 
North Carolina, May, 1775. Then in June of the same year 
South Carolina declared for independence, and in July follow- 
ing the Liberty Boys of Savannah, Georgia, called a Congress 
and practically annulled the objectionable acts of Parliament, 
questioned the supremacy of the British crown, and advocated 
statehood. They erected a liberty pole, the first in the South. 

But the boldest act was when in September, 1775, the 
Council of Safety of South Carolina, at Fort Johnson, tore 
down the British flag and raised the flag of South Carolina — a 
blue flag with a white crescent in the corner bearing the word 
"Liberty." When the Virginia Assembly met, Pendleton, I 
forget his first name, Edmund, I think, wrote a set of resolu- 
tions and, because he was presiding, asked Thomas Nelson 
to read them. The resolutions were to the effect that a delegate 
be appointed to go instructed to present at the Second Goiti- 
nental Congress a set of resolutions that the colonies be 
declared free and independent states. Richard Henry Lee was 
this delegate. Thus it was a Southern man offered the reso- 
lutions for freedom, (Lee) ; a Southern man was appointed to 
give the Summary of Rights to answer Lord North, (Jefferson) 

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A Southern man was made chairman of the Committee of 
Correspondence, (Dabney Carr) — remember, we had no rail- 
roads nor telegraph wires in those days — a Southern man 
organized the first troops for American independence (Hanson, 
of Maryland), a Southern man was made commander-in-chief 
of the army, (Washington), commander-in-chief of the navy, 
(James Nicholson), three Southern men were appointed to 
arm the colonies, and nothing could have been done had not 
another Southern man, (George Mason, of Virginia) given his 
Declaration of Rights. 

So can any one dare say that the South was not pre-em- 
inent in this the second period of our history? 

The colonies would have declared for freedom earlier 
had not the French and Indian wars kept their thoughts at 
home. But even in those Indian wars, who was the hero of 
Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes? George Rogers Clark, 
of Kentucky, and but for Clark and his brave men all of that 
Northwest Territory would now be a part of Canada. Who 
were the heroes of Council Bluff? Lewis and Clark. Who 
were the heroes of Point Pleasant? Selby and Lewis. Who 
was the hero of Duquesne and Great Meadows? George Wash- 
ington. And did not Burgoyne say his men feared above every- 
thing the riflemen of Daniel Morgan of the Shenandoah? 

Now let us see the South's part in the War for Inde- 
pendence, the third period of our history. 

We are too apt to think that this began with Jefferson's 
Declaration of Independence, but remember that the battles 
of Alamance, Lexington, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Bunker 
Hill, Quebec, Moore's Bridge and Charleston, were all fought 
before July 4, 1776. Again, why do we find in history so much 
said of those 19 patriots at Lexington, and scarcely a word 
of those 200 patriots at Alamance? When Clinton went to 
South Carolina, why did he fail to seize Sullivan's Island? 
Ask William Thompson of South Carolina. Who refused to 
surrender Charleston to Gen. Prevost? Ask Col. Moultrie. 
Who was the hero of Fort Moultrie? Sergeant Jasper. Who 
was the hero of Moore's Creek Bridge? Richard Caswell. 
Who of Ramsour's Mill? Col. Moore. 

Then for two and a half years, it is true, the war was 
fought on Northern soil, but Virginia troops were in every 
battle, our Washington was the leader after Bunker Hill, and 
Georgia sent the first schooner against the British, and Joseph 
Habersham, of Georgia, seized all the powder in the mag- 

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azine at Savannah, besides 14,000 pounds captured from a 
British ship, and sent it to be used at the Battle of Bunker 
Hill. North Carolina sent the powder that was used at Boston! 
Who was the hero of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth? 
George Washington. Who was the hero of Saratoga? Daniel 
Morgan of the Shenandoah. Who was promoted for bravery 
at the siege of Savannah? Samuel Davis, of Georgia, the 
father of our Jefferson Davis. Who were the heroes of Kettle 
Creek? Elijah Clarke and Dooly of Georgia, and Pickens of 
South Carolina. Who was the hero of Hanging Rock? 
Thomas Sumter of South Carolina. Who were the heroes of 
King's Mountain? Campbell of Virginia, Sevier and 
Selby of the Wautauga Settlement. Thomas Jefferson said 
that was the decisive battle of the Revolution. Who was the 
hero of Blackstock's Ford? Thomas Sumter of South Caro- 
lina. Who were the heroes of Cowpens? Morgan and William 
Washington of South Carolina. Cornwallis lost one-third of 
his army at this battle. Who was the hero of Yorktown? 
Thomas Nelson of Virginia. Who was the Swamp Fox of the 
Revolution? Francis Marion of South Carolina. Who was 
the Game Cock of the Revolution? Thomas Sumter. Who 
were those Partisan Leaders that did such valiant service for 
Carolina and drove Lord Rawdon from Charleston? Marion, 
Sumter, Pickens, and Lee. 

While the Americans had no regular navy, there were 
heroes on the sea, nevertheless. Who gained the victory over 
the Serapis if not John Paul Jones of North Carolina, and, 
finally, to whom did Cornwallis surrender? To our Washing- 
ton. Five-eighths of the men who fought in the Revolution 
were from Southern colonies, and nearly every leader of 
renown was from the South. 

George Bancroft, a Northern historian, said, "South Caro- 
lina endured more, suffered more, and achieved more than 
any of the other colonies," and Reed of Massachusetts, testi- 
fied that it was the gallantry of Southern men that inspired the 
whole army. 

This brings us to the fourth period of our history — The 
Period of Adjustment. 

When the surrender took place, Cornwallis sent to Wash- 
ington his sword, and Washington received it. As the soldiers 
marched away Washington said to his men, "Let there be no 
loud huzzahs, no loud acclaims, posterity will huzzah for us." 
Such was the magnanimity shown by our great commander. 

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Does this not recall to us that General Grant acted with equal 
magnanimity to our Gen. Lee and his barefoot Confederate 
braves, except there was no sword incident. Gen. Lee never 
offered his sword to Gen. Grant, nor did Gen. Grant demand 
it. 

The army gathered around Washington and offered him 
a crown. "No," he said, "my home is my throne, my crown 
shall be the love of my people," and he devoted his energies 
to adjust the new states to their new form of government. 

When the colonies renounced their allegiance to the Eng- 
lish crown, who presided over that Continental Congress to 
welcome Washington in 1781 after the surrender? John 
Hanson, of Maryland. A committee had been appointed just 
after the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to prepare 
Articles of Confederation by which they could be governed 
until a more stable form of government could be established. 
I have never been able to find who wrote these Articles of 
Confederation. There is nothing strong in them, for they 
allowed money to be borrowed to carry on war but made no 
provision to pay it back. They allowed an army to be called, 
but provided no way to equip it. They would not allow any 
taxes to be levied. They allowed treaties to be made without 
provision to bind the nation to keep them. 

The States realized their weakness and refused to sign 
them at first. A convention was called later, in 1777, to discuss 
them. Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, was made Presi- 
dent. The States did not adopt them until 1779, and then under 
protest. When the Treaty of Paris was signed, 1783, giving 
peace to the colonies, that Treaty made each colony an inde- 
pendent and sovereign State, not a nation, so no State felt 
there was anything binding in those Articles to force payment 
of the war debt. 

Alexander Hamilton, "The Financier of the Revolution," 
advised with Washington as to the propriety of calling a 
Convention at Annapolis to revise the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. Only five States sent representatives and not one was 
from the South. Then Washington advised that a Convention 
be held at Philadelphia, and he urged all States to send dele- 
gates. Twelve States were represented. Washington was 
asked to preside, James Madison was made Secretary, and but 
for Madison, we would not today have any record of that 
Constitutional Convention of 1787. It was found impossible to 
revise the Articles of Confederation, so it was proposed to 

II 



form a National Government with executive, judicial and legis- 
lative departments. Edmund Randolph of Virginia, said 
"Leave out the word National." Charles Pinckney, of South 
Carolina, (a nephew of Charles Pinckney, of 1735), said, "We 
must have a head," and he suggested that the head be called 
President. Then he also proposed that Congress be divided 
into the House of Representatives and a Senate. When it 
came to the question as to who should vote, Maryland, Rhode 
Island and the smaller States objected to a vote by population 
on the score that too much power would thus be given the 
larger States, especially Virginia. Virginia, magnanimous 
then as she ever has been magnanimous, yielded without a 
question her claim to all of that Northwest Territory from 
which were made the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wis- 
consin, Michigan and a part of Minnesota. Then when the 
question of the vote of the slave-holder came, it was a North- 
ern delegate, I think from Connecticut, who proposed that the 
slave-holder should have three votes for every five slaves. 
Thus slavery became distinctly entrenched within the U. S. 
Constitution, and that too at the suggestion of the North. 

James Madison was the one who wrote the Constitution. 
Gladstone said it was the greatest State paper every written. 
When it was first presented for adoption, Patrick Henry said, 
"Who said, 'We the people?' It should be 'We the States,'" 
and so insistent was he that State Sovereignty should be 
stressed, that ten amendments became necessary before he 
would consent for Virginia to sign it. North Carolina waited 
a year before she signed it, and Rhode Island waited two years. 
There was never a doubt in Massachusett's mind that the Con- 
stitution gave the right to a State to secede, if her rights were 
ever interfered with. Many times she threatened to secede 
and no other State ever questioned her right to do it. Even 
Daniel Webster, that great statesman of the North, so inter- 
preted the Constitution to mean State Sovereignty. 

When the question arose of paying the war debt, South 
Carolina and Georgia paid more than their share and more 
than any other State unless Massachusetts be excepted. 

Do you not think then that the South was pre-eminent in 
this period? 

May I not pause here for a moment to make a statement 
which I think is just? While I am lauding Southern men and 
the part they played in the making of the Nation, I would not 
have you believe that I wish to overlook the great work done 

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by the great men of the North, for there were great men at 
the North. We can never as a people forget the debt the 
country owes to Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Morris, 
Washington's friend who really financed the Revolution from 
his own personal means, nor John Jay, Rufus King, John 
Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Israel Put- 
nam, James Lawrence, Stephen Decatur, and many others, 
including Lafayette and our other foreign friends. But there 
is no danger that these men ever will be forgotten, for their 
deeds have been and will be always well recorded in history. 
What I am so earnestly stressing tonight are the unrecorded 
deeds of unrecorded heroes. The North is right to place 
before her young people the heroism, the fortitude, and the 
valor of the great men of the North, and so should we of the 
South, place before our young people the heroism, the forti- 
tude and the valor of the men of the South. 

Thomas Nelson Page says, "We are becoming more and 
more one people and the day is not far distant when there will 
be no South to demand a history." Are you willing to allow 
history as it is now written to go down to posterity? I am not. 
It represents our forefathers of the Revolution as "breeders 
of tyrants," "fomentors of treason," "defenders of slavery." 
It represents our Confederate fathers as "indolent, vain, 
haughty," "semi-barbarious, only saved by Northern civiliza- 
tion, illiterate, cruel slave drivers who strove to disrupt the 
Union in order to preserve the institution of slavery." That 
"secession was heresy, unconstitutional, untenable, and 
treasonable." It says also that our fathers of today are "an- 
nulling the Constitution, falsifying the ballot, and trampling 
under foot a weaker race because of race prejudice." It says 
"President Davis, Alexander Stephens, Howell Cobb, Robert 
Toombs and other rebels should have been hanged as traitors 
at the close of the Civil War." 

It has been a surprise to me that a people so proud of its 
ancestry, so assertive of its rights, so jealous of its reputation 
should be so indifferent to the preservation of its history. 

Do you wonder that I urged so strenuously this morning 
at our business meeting that we have a Chair of Southern 
History in the Teachers' College at Nashville, Tenn., endowed 
by theU. D. C? 

Ah! how I wish I could make you, Daughters of the Con- 
federacy, realize the importance of having our Southern 
teachers taught the truth of Southern history. Here in our 

13 



midst Southern young men and Southern young women are 
teaching in Southern schools the things unjust to the South, 
and do not know it. Why? Because they were taught from 
Northern text-books and they think it must be right, and they 
are still using Northern text-books. How can we expect the 
writers of Northern text-books to know what we do not know 
ourselves? No, Daughters, it is full time for the teachers of 
the South to realize this injustice to the South. 

You ask, "Why put that Chair of History in Tennessee?" 
Because Tennessee has the only Teachers' College in the South, 
and George Peabody who endowed it was a Marylander — only 
English by adoption. 

I hope the day is not far distant when there shall be in 
every university and college in our Southland such chairs 
endowed by the states and named as memorials for the great 
men of the South and men of the South who really know South- 
ern history placed in charge of them. How I should rejoice 
to see such a chair at our State University in Georgia and 
named for an honored graduate, Crawford W. Long, the dis- 
coverer of anaesthesia, the greatest boon poor suffering 
humanity has ever known. And Georgia is going to have it 
some day. 

Daughters of Florida, you should do the same for your 
Dr. Gorrie who taught us to manufacture ice. What a boon 
that has been in the sick-room and the hospital service! 

But I must hasten. We come now to the fifth period of our 
history, The Constitutional Period. 

I tried to show you at Washington last year how large a 
part Southern men had in the "Building of the Nation," so I 
will not repeat. Much concerning that period will be found 
in that published Washington Address. 

It was under the administrations of Washington, Jeffer- 
son, Monroe, Polk and Taylor that that vast extent of territory, 
2,100,000 square miles, two-thirds of the entire area of our 
country, was added to the United States. Indeed no very large 
territory was added under any other administration, unless we 
except Alaska, and that was added under a "so-called" South- 
ern President, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. But for these 
wise statesmen, France, Mexico, Spain and Bussia would have 
firm foothold in our America today. 

There was only one "Era of Good Feeling," and that was 
in Monroe's administration. There was only one Monroe 
Doctrine and that came from a Virginia son. It has been the 

14 



most dominant political question of more than a century. 
Europe has stood before it perplexed and baffled. 

It was during Southern men's administrations that the 
cotton gin was invented and patented by a Southern man, 
Joseph Watkins, of Georgia; the steamboat became a possi- 
bility from the brain of a Southern man, James Rumsey, of 
Maryland, or William Longstreet, of Georgia; the passenger 
railroad propelled by steam became a possibility in a Southern 
State, South Carolina; the reaping machine by a talented 
Southern man, revolutionizing harvesting, Cyrus McCormick, 
of Virginia; the civil service reform which was first sug- 
gested by a Southern woman, Miss Perkins, of South Carolina ; 
and the sewing machine which was first invented by a South- 
ern man and used by a Southern woman, Francis Gould- 
ing, used by his wife. The Smithsonian Institution was given 
to the United States by England under a Southern man's 
administration (Polk). 

John Tyler of Virginia held the first Peace Conference. 
The American Navy was born under Jefferson's administra- 
tion. It was Washington's far-sightedness that kept America 
from being involved in the French Revolution. 

My! how many things we can claim for our dear old mis- 
represented Southland. 

The following are all Southern men. Do you know from 
what States? 

The Father of the Constitution, Madison? 

The Father of his Country, Washington? 

The Father of the Declaration, Jefferson? 

The Father of States Rights, Patrick Henry? 

The Bayard of the Revolution, John Laurens? 

The Great Expounder of the Constitution, John Marshall? 

The Supreme Political Thinker of the Age, George Mason? 

The Cincinnatus of Mt. Vernon, Washington? 

The Great Pacificator, Henry Clay? 

The Great Nullifier, John C. Calhoun? 

The Pathfinder of the Ocean, Matthew Maury? 

Fiske, a Northern historian and so unjust in many ways 
to the South, says that the five men who shaped the American 
Nation were Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and 
Hamilton — four from the South. 

This brings us now to the sixth period, The Second War 
of Revolution, or the War of 1812. 

15 



Have you ever seen a true history of this period? I have 
not. The North did not want war with England, especially the 
New England States. Why? Because there was at that time 
in Massachusetts a spy from England arranging for the annex- 
ation of the New England States to England. You know, of 
course, that Massachusetts threatened to secede if war with 
England should be declared? No one knows what took place 
at that Hartford Convention, for the proceedings were kept 
secret, but it was well understood that the New England States 
wished to secede. It was Henry Clay that saw the danger. 
Not that he thought that those States had not the right to 
secede, but he did not wish to see the Union destroyed, and 
he felt that war must be declared to prevent any future inter- 
ference with American seamen. William Lowndes, of South 
Carolina, said, "Massachusetts must remember that injury to 
her commerce is also injury to the South's agriculture." It 
was necessary that war be declared before the New England 
States could secede. Fortunately Henry, the spy, turned 
traitor, and those states had nothing to do but to aid in carry- 
ing on the war, although the government had to compel their 
militia to serve in their country's defense. 

James Madison was the President at this time; Henry 
Clay was the Speaker of the House; John C. Calhoun of South 
Carolina, a member of Congress; William H. Crawford of 
Georgia, Secretary of War; George Campbell of Tennessee, 
Secretary of the Treasury; and Felix Grundy of Tennessee, a 
member of Congress. It was Langdon Cheves of South Caro- 
lina, who offered a resolution to increase the navy by forty- 
five frigates and twenty-five ships of the line. The United 
States navy had only 16 ships, England had 830. It was John 
C. Calhoun who offered the resolution declaring war. James 
Madison was inclined to veto the bill, but Henry Clay said 
that it would lose him all chance for renomination by the 
South, so he signed it. Henry Clay was asked to be the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, but Congress said he could not 
be spared as Speaker of the House. Harrison of Virginia, was 
put over the forces in the Northwest; Hampton, the grand- 
father of our Confederate Wade Hampton, over the forces in 
the North; Andrew Jackson in the South. Every one of the 
six frigates afterwards so well known in the War of 1812, 
among them the Constitution, Wasp, and Hornet, were built 
at Norfolk, Va., and built of Georgia wood! 

Rogers of Maryland fired the first shot from the President 

16 



into the Little Belt. Maryland suffered most because her coast 
was so exposed, but she has the honor of giving to our nation 
its National Anthem, "Star Spangled Banner," written at this 
period by her son, Francis Scott Key. 

Andrew Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New 
Orleans, the greatest victory over the British on American soil. 

The histories you studied and the ones you are now allow- 
ing your children to study will tell you that nothing was 
achieved by the Treaty of Ghent which brought peace. Indeed, 
one history will tell you "The War of Independence was direc- 
ted by a Higher Power, but the War of 1812 was an exhibition 
of unwarranted folly. It was brought on by the political ambi- 
tion of such men as John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, and the 
country at large has had to suffer for the personal ambition 
of these two political demagogues." 

What ignorance! That war was just as necessary to 
secure freedom at sea from England's rule as the War of Inde- 
pendence was to gain freedom on land, and it effectually 
secured not only this freedom from British interference, but 
from interference by all other nations at sea. There can be 
no doubt that it increased respect abroad for the United States 
as a Nation, and greatly strengthened the national spirit at 
home. It sounded the death knell of the Federal party. 

Who were the heroes of Fort Meigs, Fort Stephenson, The 
Battles of York and the Thames and Lundy's Lane, but Har- 
rison, Grogan, Johnson and Scott? Who led that famous 
"Cockade" in 1812? Richard McRae of Virginia. See that 
monument at Petersburg, Va. 

When the war began the British Navy was singing 
"Britannia Rules the Waves," but when the war ended Amer- 
ican seamen were singing, "Hail, Columbia, Happy Land." 

Was not the South pre-eminent in this period? 

The War With Mexico is the seventh period of our history. 

Have you ever asked yourself the question, "Why so many 
of the men who fought in the Mexican War were from the 
South?" It is officially stated that two-thirds were. A South- 
ern man was in the White House, the two leaders were South- 
ern men, and the heroes of nearly every battle were from 
the South. The South has been misunderstood and therefore 
misrepresented by the historians of this period of history. 

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 left the negroes con- 
gested in the Southern States, for after Missouri was admitted 
as a State there could be no slaves above a certain degree of 

17 



latitude. Now there were many men in the South very anxious 
for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, for we were begin- 
ning to realize that under the institution of slavery the negro 
was the free man and the slaveholder was the slave. There 
were many who did not believe in slavery, but having inherited 
this property did not know how best to get rid of it. They 
realized what it has taken the North fifty years to learn, that 
it would never do to free them in the midst of an Anglo-Saxon 
race born to rule. Abraham Lincoln realized it, for he was try- 
ing in every way up to the time of his death to arrange for the 
colonization of the negro in Central America or Liberia. 
Edmund Randolph realized what it would mean. He wanted 
to free his slaves, but he said, "We have a wolf by the ear, to 
let him loose is dangerous, to hold him is equally dangerous." 

Thirty-two times the Virginia Legislature tried to abolish 
the slave trade. Massachusetts was the first State to legislate 
in favor of it, and Georgia was the first State to legislate 
against it. There were 130 abolition societies in the U. S. be- 
fore 1850, and 106 were in the South. We had 5,175 members 
and the North only had 1,162. 

By this War with Mexico the men of the South hoped for 
an extension of territory so as to make the gradual emancipa- 
tion of slaves a possibility. 

Santa Anna had acknowledged the independence of Texas, 
but Mexico refused to acknowledge it, so when Texas was ad- 
mitted as one of the United States, war was declared. 

The independence of Texas had been gained just as the in- 
dependence of the colonies, by right of arms. Can we ever 
forget those heroes of that conflict between Texas and Mexico? 
Moore, Houston, Fannin, Bowie, Crockett, Austin, Travis, Bon- 
ham, and many others equally as brave. Can we ever forget 
our heroes of that War with Mexico ? 

Who was so highly commended for engineering skill, but 
our beloved Robert E. Lee? Who was the hero of Buena Vista? 
Our Jefferson Davis. Can you not hear him now as he said, 
"Come, Mississippians; cowards to the rear, brave men to the 
front?" and those brave sons of Mississippi aided by equally 
brave Kentuckians followed their leader to victory. Who won 
Brazeto and Sacramento and captured Chihauhua? William 
Doniphan, "the Patrick Henry of Kentucky." Who was the hero 
of Chepultepec? Thomas Jackson, our Stonewall. Who were 
the heroes of Palo Alto, Matamoras, Resaca de la Palma? All 
Southern men. 

18 



Who planted the U. S. flag in the City of Mexico? Quit- 
man of Mississippi. Who first scaled the ramparts of Monte- 
rey? Rodgers of Alabama. And was not Daniel Hill of South 
Carolina called the bravest soldier of that war? And who 
wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead," which immortalized these 
heroes? Theodore O'Hara of Kentucky. 

Yes, Southern arms surely deserve the renown of that vic- 
tory. 

We are now brought to the eighth period of our history, 
The South on the Defensive, or the Abolition Crusade. 

I said that the South was pre-eminent in the last period, 
but was she allowed to reap the reward of her victory? Not at 
all. Seward and other Northern politicians gathered in Con- 
vention at Pittsburg, Pa., and arranged to so legislate that no 
slaves should be in this newly acquired territory. This natur- 
ally made the South indignant, for she resented the many acts 
of injustice that had been shown to her. She had been unjust- 
ly treated in the Tariff Acts of 1830 when Hayne and Calhoun 
of South Carolina boldly contended for her rights. Hayne 
said, "It is unconstitutional for a government to make laws to 
enrich one section and impoverish another," and he was right. 
The hiding of runaway slaves, and believing their representa- 
tions of plantation life rather than the representations of the 
Christian men of the South caused increased resentment. 
Thirty thousand of our negroes, the property of the planters, 
had been encouraged to run away and hidden from their own- 
ers by means of the so-called "Underground Railways" at the 
North, and sent across the line to Canada. 

As in family life, a child is punished if disobedient, so in 
plantation life a disobedient and unruly negro had to be pun- 
ished. Discipline had to be maintained on the plantation as 
in the home. Now it was more agreeable for that negro to run 
away and cross the border line where he knew he would be 
protected than to receive his just punishment. And it was per- 
fectly natural for this kind of negro to exaggerate his threat- 
ened punishment. He told the abolitionists that we yoked them 
to plows to cultivate our fields, and the abolitionist willing to 
believe this did so, not realizing that the negro was our salable 
property and that a $60 mule would be much cheaper for his 
work than a $1200 negro. He said that we used dogs to tear 
their flesh when we used bloodhounds to track the runaway. If 
an overseer, and these overseers were rarely Southern men, 
whipped a negro cruelly, as did sometimes happen on the large 

19 



plantations, but not oftener than parents sometimes whip 
cruelly a child, that overseer was at once dismissed. Had no 
other reason than a selfish reason prevailed, a slaveholder 
could not afford to have his property injured by brutal treat- 
ment. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was found- 
ed on one of these cruel misrepresentations by a negro from a 
Mississippi plantation. Mrs. Stowe, of course, really believed it 
to be true. But that book did more than any other one thing to 
bring on the War between the States. The South felt power- 
less to stem the tide of popular belief at the North, so fanatical 
did these political abolitionists become. 

A Georgia lawyer, Thos. R. R. Cobb, brought out about this 
time a book, "The Law of Slavery," which really is a most re- 
markable production. Every available authority upon the sub- 
ject of slavery among all nations was carefully studied and 
quoted. Coming about the time of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" it was 
suppressed in the North, and the war coming on prevented a 
second edition in the South. When William Lloyd Garrison 
heard that this book proved that the institution of slavery was 
defended by the Bible, he said, "Better then destroy the Bible," 
showing to what length his fanaticism led him. Fourteen 
Northern States passed "Personal Liberty Bills" and were vio- 
lating the Fugitive Slave Law which was included in Henry 
Clay's Omnibus Bill. The South feeling that this Omnibus Bill 
was unjust to her, accepted it, hoping to bring peace, when 
these same Northern States, violating the law, urged the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, and 
he was elected without a single electoral vote from the South, 
the Southern States felt no right would be respected and it was 
full time to secede. 

Yes, the North was pre-eminent in this period of our his- 
tory. 

The ninth period is The War Between the States. 

Eleven States rapidly seceded and the Confederate gov- 
ernment was formed at Montgomery, Ala. The blockade came 
almost with secession. Had the South found a market for her 
cotton and tobacco possibly the surrender would never have 
taken place. Or had the prisoners been exchanged as Presi- 
dent Davis and Gen. Howell Cobb so strenuously urged, Gen. 
Lee would not have been obliged to surrender. Of one thing I 
am assured the horrors of Andersonville Prison could have 
been averted. 

20 



Do you ask would it have been better had the South been 
victorious? I must say No, God knew best. Far better to have 
a Nation as we now have with such a man as Woodrow Wilson 
at the head, supported by those strong Democratic leaders 
from North and South, wisely doing the things which stand for 
right, than to be Sovereign States, as we would have been, the 
prey of any petty republic which desired to interfere with us. 

The war did not begin with the firing on Fort Sumter. It 
began when Lincoln ordered 2,400 men and 285 guns to the de- 
fense of Sumter. The surrender was not due to Federal vic- 
tories, but to Confederate exhaustion. The Confederate forces 
were 1 to 5. One hundred and seventy-five thousand men sur- 
rendered to 1,050,000. The North lost as many men at the bat- 
tles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania as were lost in the French 
and Indian wars, the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mex- 
ican War combined. 

Yes, the North came out pre-eminent in this period of our 
history. 

You know this history better probably than you do any 
other, so I shall rapidly pass to the next, which is the eleventh 
—The Humiliated South or The Reconstruction Period. 

After the surrender the soldiers returned to their homes, 
where homes remained, oppressed and depressed. They lit- 
erally had nothing left but the ground upon which they stood. 
Families scattered, negroes freed, banks closed, no currency 
available. The slaveholder knowing less than his overseer and 
slaves about the practical part of farming. The lawyer had no 
clients, the teacher had no pupils, the merchant had no credit, 
the doctor had no drugs. Ah! it Was pitiful! Georgia and 
South Carolina suffered most on account of the desolation 
caused by Sherman's March to the Sea. 

This was the time when those women of the Confederacy 
showed of what stuff they were made. They put their loving 
arms about those husbands and sons and they said "We are not 
conquered, we are just overpowered, and we think it was bet- 
ter that you fought, even if you did not win, than never to have 
fought at all. The South is going to come out all right, you 
wait and see." What prophets they were, for is not the South 
today the Nation's greatest asset? 

They began to collect the bodies of the Confederate sol- 
diers scattered over the battlefields, placing them where they 
could care for them, and where they could deck those graves 
with flowers. Then they began to erect monuments over them. 

21 



The men said, "We cannot help you, for we are under an oath 
of allegiance." The women said, "We are under no oath," and 
the work went on. Ben Butler, in Louisiana, said we should 
not build monuments to our Confederate dead, and so said 
Meade, in Georgia, but we did it anyway, didn't we ? They did 
not know Southern women. More monuments stand to the 
Confederate soldier today than to any other soldier of any 
other nation who ever fought for any cause. 

Had not Lincoln been assassinated, all would have gone 
well even then, for the negroes still loved their old owners, and 
did not wish to leave them. Indeed they were like little chil- 
dren, they did not know how to make a living for themselves, 
and they did know that "ole marster" would never let them 
suffer. Lincoln's death was the worst blow that could have 
befallen the South. Lincoln was not such a great negro lover as 
has been represented in history. He was Southern born and 
knew the true relation between the owner and his slaves. It is 
true he did not believe in slavery, neither did Washington, nor 
Jefferson, nor Mason, nor many other leading men of the 
South. Stonewall Jackson never owned but two slaves in his 
life and they begged him to buy them. But Lincoln was an 
intense Union man, and he determined to preserve the Union at 
all hazards. If he could do it with slavery, all right; if not, 
slavery must go. His Emancipation Proclamation did not free 
the negroes as a race. It freed your father's slaves, and my 
father's slaves, but it did not free Gen. Grant's slaves, nor the 
slaves in Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, Deleware, and other 
States where slaves still remained after the War. This Procla- 
mation, the result of a rash vow, was only a measure to punish 
the seceding States. He had said in his Inaugural Address the 
South need not fear his interference with their slaves. The 
slaves were not really freed until a Southern man, John Hen- 
derson of Missouri, proposed the 13th Amendment to the Con- 
stitution after Lincoln's death. But had Abraham Lincoln lived, 
he never would have stood for that Reconstruction measure of 
Thad Stevens. We would never have been put under military 
rule and divided into Districts; we would never have had the 
Freedman's Bureau to humiliate us; he would never have stood 
for social equality in the South, he knew the thought of the 
people too well; we would not have had that rule of the carpet- 
bagger and scalawag in the South, and I am perfectly sure he 
would never have stood for that Exodus Order of Thad Stev- 
ens's, which more than any other one thing is responsible for 

22 



the present day negro problem. That Order tore more chil- 
dren from their parents than was ever done in all the years of 
slavery by any slave block. 

That Stevens saw that the negroes were remaining with 
their old owners and he could not accomplish the plans laid for 
social equality of the negro in the South. He told them if they 
remained with their former owners they would be made slaves 
again, and ordered that no two families could remain upon the 
same plantation. This caused a separation of families and a 
rending of ties and a fearful alienation between whites and 
blacks followed. The faithful mammies would not leave 
"marster's white chile," and that is the reason so many were 
found many years after freedom still with their former owners. 

Oh! Daughters of the Confederacy, members of our In- 
diana Chapters, there was a friend of the South from your In- 
diana in those awful Reconstruction days. As our Mr. Cun- 
ningham has been instrumental in erecting a memorial to Mr. 
Owens who was so good to our prisoners during the War, so I 
would like to see you erect some memorial to that Democratic 
Congressman so anxious to help the South in this hour of her 
need. I refer to Dan Vorhees, of Indiana. He said it was a 
shame to make dead provinces out of living States. He said 
the South was a white man's country and should be kept so, 
but that Reconstruction Committee would not listen to his 
pleading. 

The Ku Klux Klan was an absolute necessity in the South 
at this time. This Order was not composed of the "riff raff" 
as has been represented in history, but of the very flower of 
Southern manhood. The chivalry of the South demanded pro- 
tection for the women and children of the South. 

Yes, the North was pre-eminent in this period of our his- 
tory, but does not the South stand out in no uncertain light? It 
has proven to the world that she can be as brave in defeat as 
in victory; she can stand humiliation and lawlessness with 
Christian resignation; she can bear and forbear, and yet suffer 
in silence; and while having far more to forgive and forget, she 
has a heart ever ready to do the things that make for peace, 
and stands ready today to stretch forth her hand in the true 
spirit of reconciliation. 

The record of the Confederate soldier, the heroism of the 
Confederate women, the monuments erected to Southern valor 
have caused the whole world to be lost in admiration and won- 
der. 

23 



Now comes The Second Period of Adjustment. 

It was very hard for our Southern men unused to manual 
labor of any kind to try to adjust themselves to the new order 
of things in the South. It really was easier for the women than 
for the men, and some men never did get adjusted, and some 
women have never been reconstructed. 

The kitchens in the old civilization were never in the 
house, but some distance from it. There was no need that they 
should be in the house then, for there were plenty of young ne- 
groes to run back and forth with the hot waffles, the hot egg 
bread, the biscuits and the battercakes. But when the women 
of the South had to go into the kitchen after the negroes left, 
or had become too impertinent to be allowed around the house, 
the inconveniences were greatly felt. You must remember 
there was rarely such a thing as a cooking stove before the 
War. All cooking had to be done in an open fireplace, with 
oven and pots. There were no water works, and all water had 
to be drawn from the well or brought from the spring. There 
were no electric lights, no gas lights, no kerosene lamps even, 
and lard lamps were really a rarity used only by the rich. The 
dependence for light were wax, tallow and sperm candles. The 
wood had to be cut and the chips had to be picked up, and all 
this consumed time and required great patience. This was the 
beginning of the breaking up of home life in the South and it 
proved the death blow to the old time Southern hospitality. 
Things began to brighten, however, as the years rolled by, for 
the new homes in the South began to add the kitchen to the 
house and conveniences were gradually introduced, so that 
with gas stoves, electric plates and fireless cookers our South- 
ern women are as independent today as the women of the 
North, and can cook as good a meal with as little trouble, and 
wash and iron too, if need be. They really have more sym- 
pathy and more patience with the negro help than the women 
of the North, and really are more anxious to aid the negroes in 
the right way. 

The twelfth period is The Industrial South or The South 
Coming to Her Own. 

We had been an agricultural people before the War be- 
tween the States, and were satisfied to be. We never realized 
the possibilities in our grasp. We did not know that we had 
9,000,000 horsepower in our streams of the South. We did not 
know that we could make anything worth while out of the cot- 
ton seed we were yearly throwing away. We did not know 

24 



that there was untold wealth lying beneath our feet, but we 
know it now. South Carolina first began to realize the possi- 
bilities in her cotton mills. She discovered that she was sell- 
ing her cotton crop every year to Massachusetts for $30,000,000, 
and Massachusetts was making it into cloth and thread and 
selling it for $100,000,000. The thought came, "Why may I not 
keep that money in my own State?" and that is what South 
Carolina is doing today, and other Southern States are follow- 
ing her example. 

I think the Spanish-American War did much to make the 
South realize her own powers. At least it made the two sec- 
tions know each other better. That war taught us loyalty to 
the United States flag, which we had not loved during those 
four years of war, and during those seven years of Reconstruc- 
tion which followed. But when our boys put on that uniform 
of blue, and fought under the Stars and Stripes side by side 
with the boys of the North we began to feel it was our flag as 
much as it was the flag of the North. The South showed that 
she was again loyal to the Union, for more volunteers from 
Southern States, in proportion to population, went to that war 
than from any of the Northern States, and our boys made 
themselves known, too. 

Who was commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Squadron? 

Winfield Scott Schley. Who was made Minister to Ha- 
vana? Fitzhugh Lee. Who was called "The Wizard of the 
Saddle?" Joe Wheeler. Who commanded the Brooklyn when 
Cervera's fleet was destroyed? Schley. What vessel fired the 
first shot of the war? The "Nashville," commanded by Mayn- 
ard of Tennessee. Who fired the first shot at Manilla? Stoak- 
ley Morgan of Arkansas. Who was promoted for gallantry on 
the field? Micah Jenkins of South Carolina. Who shed the 
first blood of the war? John B. Gibbs of Virginia. Who was 
the first to fall in battle? Worth Bagley of North Carolina. 
Who was Dewey"s right-hand man? Tom Brumby of Georgia. 
Who was the hero of Santiago Bay? Winfield S. Schley. Who 
was the backbone of the Santiago campaign? Joe Wheeler. 
Who sank the ships to block the enemy and saved the day? 
Hobson of Alabama. Who raised the flag at Manilla ? Brum- 
by of Georgia. Who was sent with a message to Garcia? Row- 
an of Virginia. Who was sent to count the ships in Santiago 
Bay? Victor Blue of South Carolina. Every one our Southern 
boys. Then who was put in command of the American troops 
in the Philippines? Ewell S. Otis. Who was made Governor 

25 



of the Philippines? Luke Wright of Memphis. And does this 
not show our boys of the South equalled in courage and hero- 
ism the boys of the North? 

Who shall say then, that we did not share the honors dur- 
ing this period of our history? 

And now we come to the thirteenth and last period of our 
history — The Triumphant South. 

Do you know that three-fourths of all the cotton in the 
world is raised in the South? Do you know that Europe pays 
the South annually $600,000,000 for her cotton, and that is only 
one-third of the products the South supplies to her? Yes, Cot- 
ton is King, and that American king was born in Georgia. Do 
you know that three-fourths of all the sulphur mined in the 
world comes from the South, and all used in the United States 
comes from Louisiana? Do you know that Louisiana sulphur 
mines dominate not only the sulphur trade of America, but all 
Europe? Do you know that three-fourths of all the coal in the 
U. S. is in the South? Do you know that seven-eighths of all 
the forest area of the United States is in the South? Do you 
know that the only diamond mines out of Africa are in Ark- 
ansas? Do you know that all the phosphate beds of the United 
States are in the South? 

Do you know that Tennessee's coal is better than Pennsyl- 
vania's coal? Do you know that Georgia's marble is better 
than Vermont's marble? Do you know that Texas' oil wells 
produce annually 85,000,000 barrels of oil — far more prolific 
than those of Pennsylvania? Do you know that Joseph Wat- 
kins of Georgia patented the cotton gin one year before Eli 
Whitney? Do you know that the largest cotton warehouse in 
the world, covering 161 acres of land, is in Memphis, Tenn.? 
Do you know that Georgia mills are making velvet, and 
Georgia mills are making the thread from which are made 
those beautiful curtains in your Philadelphia homes? Do you 
know how many lumber mills there are in the South ? Ask the 
Manufacturer's Record. I know that the largest saw mill in the 
United States is in Arkansas. Do you know that the largest 
fertilizer plant in the world is in Charleston? Do you know 
that the largest sulphuric acid plant is in Tennessee? Do you 
know that lead was first mined in Mississippi? 

Do you know that our corn equals that of Iowa? our wheat 
that of Illinois? our oats that of Ohio? our apples those of the 
East? and that our Georgia peach is the best in the World? 

26 



Do you know that Dr. Seaman Knapp, for whom Tennes- 
see's Agricultural College is named, was a Louisiana man? 
Do you know that the pioneer of scientific agriculture was Ed- 
mund Ruffin of Virginia? Do you know that "The Rural Phil- 
osopher" was John Taylor of Virginia? Do you know that the 
first professor of economics and statistics was James De Bow 
of Louisiana? 

I do not believe you know what our Agricultural colleges 
are doing to make the South realize her own greatness. One 
county in Georgia has 41 different kinds of soil, and experts 
are finding out all sorts of things about our Southern soils. 
Why, we are furnishing food and fibre for the world, and there 
lies beneath our feet yet untold undeveloped wealth. The 
South has 55 different minerals. 

We have no right to cry hard times in the South, it is a dis- 
ease we have caught from others. Our nearness to Panama 
will make us the center of the world's trade, and Panama 
would not be habitable, would it, but for our William Gorgas 
of Alabama? As we have one-half of the sea coast of the 
United States, the South will be the logical point for the future 
naval displays of the world. 

No, we do not realize our own greatness, because we do 
not know our own country. It is a great country this United 
States of ours. It spans a Continent; it is the youngest, yet it is 
the noblest of all the nations of the world. Nature has really 
seemed partial to the South, for while she has given great 
stretches of land to the West much of it is barren waste. While 
she has given great fertility to the North and East half the year, 
there is icy bleakness the remaining half. To the South she has 
given almost perpetual spring; we scarcely know when sum- 
mer ends and winter begins; when winter ends and spring be- 
gins. Half way between icy bleakness and tropical heat, par- 
taking of the advantages of both but not injured by the disad- 
vantages of either. We have soil and climate the most won- 
derful in the world; rainfall abundant but not in excess. Situ- 
ated in the latitude of the Holy Land we are the home of the 
orange, the pineapple and the banana; the home of the rose, 
the jasmine and the oleander; the home of the palm and the 
live oak and the magnolia; the home of the pomegranate, the 
apple, and the peach; the home of the pecan, the walnut and 
the chestnut, to say nothing of the watermelon, "the 'possum 
and the 'taters." 

Bathed on the East by the Atlantic Ocean, tempered by the 

27 



warm waters of the Gulf Stream; on the South by the tepid 
waters of the Gulf of Mexico; on the West reaching to Mexico 
and California, the land of flowers; protected on the North- 
west, by the grand old Rockies from Alaska's icy blasts. The 
Mississippi, "The Father of Rivers," flowing through our entire 
length of States; the Appalachian range on the eastern shore, 
with its highest peak in North Carolina; the Blue Ridge run- 
ning toward us and ending in that geological monstrosity — our 
Stone Mountain of Georgia. Nature has worked wonders in 
our midst — the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the Natural 
Bridge in Virginia, the bottomless Blue Spring in Florida, and 
the Tallulah Falls of Georgia. 

Are we teaching patriotism to our children? Do you ask 
me, "What is patriotism?" My! What magic in the word. 
Love and loyalty to home and country. Love as tender as that 
of a mother for a child; loyalty so unselfish as to forget self. 
Patriotism is the spark that kindles the Nation's fire; it is the 
fountain from which the Nation's prosperity flows; it is the hel- 
met that shields the Nation's life; it is the shield that guards 
the Nation's home. 

Patriotism is inborn and if you have it not, you are ab- 
normal. (Laughter.) It should begin with love of God, then 
love of home, then love of country, then love of State, then love 
of place. America is a Christian country, ours by Divine gift. 
Liberty is God's acknowledgement that we are capable of re- 
ceiving the gift. 

Our government has no model, nothing like it in the world. 
A government of the people, by the people, for the people. 
Benjamin Hill, our "silver-tongued orator" said, "It was 
planned not by human wisdom but by Divine guidance. The 
Romans never dreamed of it; the Greeks never could have con- 
ceived it; the European mind never could have evolved it." 
Alexander Stephens said that the creed of patriotism is "Im- 
provement of the mind, erection of schools and temples of 
learning, interest in the things that make for industry, and 
good will to all men!" 

A patriot is one who saves his country's honor. You were 
patriots, Veterans, for you saved your country's honor, and 
now, God bless you, you have lived to see your country's tri- 
umph. Everything you fought for has been acknowledged by 
those against whom you fought. Even Harriet Beecher Stowe's 
son, Rev. Charles Stowe, has publicly said that there was a re- 
bellion but it was the North that rebelled against the Constitu- 

28 



tion: that slavery could not have been the unmitigated evil it 
has been represented to be, or one could not account for the 
faithfulness of the slaves when the men of the South were at 
the front; that there was undoubtedly some good in a civiliza- 
tion which could produce such a beautiful Christian character 
as "Uncle Tom." 

Veterans, "heroes in grey, with hearts of gold," it was 
harder to live after the war than it was to face the bullets on 
battlefields, wasn't it? 

Yes, the South is triumphant today! She is not only the 
Nation's greatest asset, but she is the world's greatest asset. 
This is the Golden Age — an age of great power, buoyant 
strength, great wealth, and freedom to run an unhindered race. 
But we must remember that there is a danger in golden ages. 
Hannibal lost the fruits of his victories by the orange groves 
and vineyards of Campania. Mark Antony lost his by the al- 
luring charms of a Cleopatra. Let us then beware lest greed 
of gold, selfishness, or intemperance engulf us. Let the public 
weal be as the apple of our eye. Let us keep the ballot box 
pure. Let duty ever be our watchword. 

Sail on, thou great and mighty Ship of States, sail on over 
billows and through storms and seas, sail on. 

May balmy breezes and gentle winds waft thee into a safe 
and quiet harbor. May thy keel be strong, thy sails pure and 
white. May duty be thy polar star. Sail on, sail on, undaunted 
by Mexico's threatening waves, by Panama's alluring charms, 
by selfish trusts, by tariff blasts, yes, by women's votes, sail on, 
and thou shalt surely enter into Rest and Peace, if we as pat- 
riots will only firmly stand, and knowing the right dare to 
maintain it. 

One last word : 

Now, Daughters of the Confederacy, teach, I pray you, 
your children this : 

"Though we were overpowered, we were not degraded, 
Southern laurels have never faded; 
All is not lost unto us, 
Only baseness can undo us. 
Kneeling at your country's altar 
Teach your children not to falter 

Till the right shall rule in Dixie." 



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